Peterson case goes to jury

REDWOOD CITY, CALIFORNIA — Jurors began deliberating the fate of Scott Peterson on Wednesday, more than five months after testimony began in the murder of his wife and their unborn son.

Judge Alfred Delucchi sent the panelists off with lunch into the jury room after about 45 minutes of instructions. Jurors must decide whether Peterson killed his pregnant wife and dumped her body in San Francisco Bay or was merely a straying husband who was framed. He plans to keep the jurors sequestered until they reach a verdict.

Winding up their case earlier in the day, defense lawyers lashed out at the notion that Laci Peterson's fetus died in her womb. Lawyer Mark Geragos reminded jurors that authorities never found the placenta or the fetus' umbilical cord, leaving little evidence to determine whether the male fetus was born alive and killed later.

If the fetus died later, Geragos said, "it's not Scott Peterson who did that."

Prosecutors claim Peterson, a fertilizer salesman who was having an affair, strangled or smothered his 27-year-old wife on Dec. 23 or 24, 2002, then dumped her body in the bay.

Jurors have two choices should they decide to convict--first-degree murder, carrying a possible death sentence or life without parole, and second-degree murder, carrying two sentences of 15 years to life.